1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates generally to optic structures and optic devices. More particularly, the invention relates to acousto-optic structures and acousto-optic devices.
2. Description of the Related Art
Commercially available acousto-optic modulators often operate by releasing a traveling acoustic wave from an inter-digitated transducer (IDT) into an acousto-optically active medium, thereby creating a modulated refractive index in the acousto-optically active medium. Incident light is diffracted and frequency shifted from this modulated refractive index region and can be processed depending upon an output direction. To shrink the acousto-optic modulator to chip-scale size, structures to convert acoustic phase modulation into intensity phase modulation, such as a Mach-Zehnder interferometer or a photonic microcavity, have been demonstrated.
Since optical signal propagation characteristics and optical signal switching characteristics are important considerations within advanced data processing systems, desirable are additional acousto-optic modulator structures and their methods of fabrication.